Over the Garden Wall

Hello Friends!

Yes, most of my contact with the outside world these days is over the garden wall, snatched chats with neighbours if we happen to be outside together.

While clearing an overgrown area the other evening, I spotted a bright yellow tennis ball.  It belonged to the little boy next door.  Two months ago I would have gently thrown it back.  Now, I called to his Mum to ask if it was okay to throw it back. How our lives have changed! She was happy so I carefully pitched it over the shrubbery.

I pondered upon this for a while, a little glimmer of what was once a normal behaviour, now changed forever.  Even when we are able to relax a little, in all likelihood Coronavirus Covid-19 will still dictate our lifestyle to us.  Unless a successful vaccine is found, like other diseases, in time it may be eradicated, but otherwise it's here for the duration.  For people with certain medical conditions {me, for example, with asthma} this means the current adaptations may be permanent. Whoa boy! Endless disinfection and hand washing.

Which got me to thinking: I hear the news channels speaking about "returning to normal", but what if you are like me and you don't want to return to that old normal, that which at the turn of the year we took for granted.  What, if like me, you can see the benefits of our situation?  The sky is bluer, the air is clearer, the silence is oh! so welcome and I am hearing birds sing, bees buzzing all day long. I am trying, arthritis permitting, to clear my garden in preparedness to grow fruit and vegetables again. If you try not to think about the dreadful and dire situation of the virus, everything else is so calm and peaceful.  As an introvert, the joy of not having to go out and socially interact is a huge relief and I am calmer and more content with my life. The planet is healing and beginning to breathe again.  She will relish this time to heal the devastating wounds we have inflicted.

I have seen a huge change in even my most basic day to day activities, and other than the endless disinfecting and cleaning processes, I am settling into the new routine well, and happily. How I cook and eat has changed; how I shop has changed; my focus on what is, and what isn't, important has changed; how much rubbish I am throwing out has decreased unbelievably {and I didn't throw that much out in the first instance}.  I don't want to go back to the normal that was before. I want this new normal, without the virus hanging over us.  If we don't all learn from this, then do we really deserve to be the custodians of the planet?

Okay, I won't go on any more about the virus, but I wanted to share my feelings. Thank you for indulging me and listening!

I am not yet happy to start walking about along the roads, but that time is coming, so for now all my photos are taken in my garden, and here's a few things currently blooming and growing in my cottage garden.

I could preface each of these with "it's my favourite flower", for I love them all!

Arum Lily in bud

Violets along a wall

Now, two Christmases ago, the first Christmas after my darling Mum died, I did not feel like doing anything to celebrate.  I did not decorate, but ended up buying a living tree which I garlanded with fruit and nuts, and birdseed, placed outside my cottage door.  The tree did not do well, and despite repotting it has not thrived.  The other day I decided to tip it out and use the giant pot it is in for something else, so imagine my delight to find it is suddenly sprouting tiny green buds all over!

Native fern

Aquilegia or Grannies' Bonnet

Libertia peregrinans or Wandering iris

offshoot! Free plants!

Aquilegia

I just adore the delicate colouring on this pansy

London Pride {I can just hear Noel Coward singing}

Pennywort or Navelwort

Native fern

Pennywort flower

There will be many pictures of flowers and probably very little else on my blog in the coming months, but with each new bloom comes a promise of hope, a promise of a future that we must not mess up. We're being given a second chance, let's not let nature, or ourselves, down.

Until next time
Deborah xoxo